You will benefit from a range of tools when you use the email marketing service from Benchmark, with features such as the ability to add links, social media, and other interactive features to your marketing materials. You can also create surveys and send them out with the Benchmark Email marketing system, and this is part of the package which is not always the case with some competitors. - Joseph Raspolich

I have used Aweber for years, but wondered is I should try another service. One thing I do not like about Aweber is they don’t allow you to upload a list of contacts. I know that some of the other companies do. So, I appreciate your comparison. It makes Aweber a little more comfortable. If anyone is interested I do have a free booklet on “71 Ways to Get Free Traffic” that can be found here http://trafficmadeeasy.net/71-ways. Thanks for the article.

“Mailchimp was great when I just had a blog. Now that I have my book, I’m starting to have products, it’s more of a business. I didn’t think that Mailchimp could handle me. I needed something a little more versatile that could target the people that I sent things to depending on what list they were on or what they clicked. It needed to be a little more sophisticated for me. That’s why I needed to switch over.”
• I don’t pay for duplicates. This was one of my pet peeves with Aweber. Because Aweber is based on lists (vs tags), I had many lists set up – from customer lists to opt-in lists and more. If you joined my main list and then opted-in to my new freebie, I paid for you twice. There are people on my list that have been there since 2008, and have opted-in to many of my lists — it’s possible that I might have been paying for people 5x or more. Plus – it totally skewed my numbers. If you were on five different lists, you were counted five times. This did not give me an accurate reflection of my current subscriber numbers.
So far, we have created the list, imported existing contacts to our list, and now it’s time to increase our email list. That will be done by putting up the sign-up form at the blog, landing page or company page, where you wish to add Email-sign up form. Click on the Lists at the top of your Mail Chimp dashboard, click on the design sign-ups form, and you can start designing your form. For first-timer, it will take few minutes to get used to features of form creation here, but once you play with it, it will be dead easy. You can create different forms for your mailing list. For example, Subscription confirms message, unsubscribe form, and so on. You can also click on Auto-design, which picks up the logo from your Website, and matches with your Website colors.

We created Newbie Classes as the 'go to' place for all your internet marketing training needs. We know what it's like to be a struggling beginner without help or answers. This why we created an entire membership dedicated to bringing you all the knowledge and help you need so you can watch the videos in your own time, learn at your own pace and achieve great results!

There are two great things about Mad Mimi. First: it's very cheap. Second, it's very easy to use. These two factors may convince users to purchase a plan. However, some users will find that there are some noticeable omissions when it come to more advanced functionality, particularly in the autoresponder and split testing department. - Chris Singleton
I have a few criteria that I am picky about when it comes to a membership platform. Obviously protecting your content is priority, but the membership setup must be simple, and the members page has to look professional. I have tried several membership plugins, scripts, and cloud platforms over the years and I have finally… “Good Things Come To Those That Wait!”
Thank you for a detailed comparison of MailChimp and Aweber. I think it’s a nice idea to also have an in-house email software like this one http://easymail7.com in addition to the account with a remotely hosted email provider like MailChimp or Aweber. In case of a sudden account suspension by the ESP, you would not lose contacts, emails, autoresponders etc, and would be able to continue email marketing using the in-house email software.

Video marketing is probably the most powerful way to drive traffic to your site. People love to watch a video to learn something rather than reading text. And with the growth of mobile your video needs to be friendly for these viewers. You must get your point across a lot quicker and add elements of entertainment or gamification to keep peoples attention.

The Blog Broadcast is Aweber’s term for the automatic emails that get sent out every time you publish a blog post. They are separate from the other automatic follow ups that you send out. The great thing about Aweber is that you can choose to send a hundred follow ups or none, automatic blog broadcasts or manual blog broadcasts, etc. It is all up to you. For example, here on Blog Tyrant I send out all my updates automatically to my subscribers as well as the occasional email newsletter with a few tips and specials.
Businesses that choose to make email offers, usually belong to the e-commerce industry. The benefit for those who are on the mailing list is specific offers that they can get from your company. This kind of approach provides value for both parties. The business can increase the number of sold items, whereas the customer is in a special position as a result of being subscribed to your business.
That’s it, and now you have successfully created your first Email list using MailChimp, and you are officially in the way of becoming an Email-marketer. The good thing about Mailchimp is; it’s design and every field is interactive, so even if you are new, you will never be lost. More over, you can always ping their support for any help, or search for tutorials like this to learn more. You can take advantage of any of these WordPress Email marketing plugins to quickly integrate MailChimp on your blog.
chantal.. yes we love his posts! I compared aweber with benchmail.. both are great, i liked the added polls, and survey ability on benchmail. sign up for both, play around as they both feel different and both have a lot more added features than mail chimp, unless you are just one company, and not doing a lot then mailchimp will be ok. For me no mater how small the intention is always to grow. Good luck

My book, Will It Fly?, will help you choose and test your next business idea. If you’ve already got a business and are struggling to keep up with the workload, I highly recommend my friend Chris Ducker’s book, Virtual Freedom. Chris teaches you how to work with virtual staff to free up your time to focus on the important tasks in your life. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase Virtual Freedom through the link to the right.]

Upon signing up there’s a skippable introductory video. AWeber has a bit more of a setup procedure than most ESPs; to get started, you’ll need to fill out information including the business address you want to feature on the bottom of emails, as well as any customizations you want to make to AWeber’s standard opt-in confirmation message. Once you’ve finished those basic configurations, you’ll be free to explore the program.

Thanks for bringing that subject up! Having you used both of these services in the past 2 years, I prefer Aweber over Mailchimp. For me it comes down to usability and efficiency, which Aweber just does better than Mailchimp. Having said that, I do like the value Mailchimp brings to the table for new startups with their free service. Also I do admit that giving away 2,000 subscribers to everyone – that’s just huge, yet clever at the same time.

In ConvertKit, this is much easier. Unlike Aweber where you set up separate lists (I had 63 lists when I shut my account down), in ConvertKit, you don’t have lists at all. Instead, you use tags and automation rules to segment your audience. So I can have someone go through a nurture sequence (when they first join my list) while still sending my blog/podcast broadcasts to my main list. I simply create a rule:
• I don’t pay for duplicates. This was one of my pet peeves with Aweber. Because Aweber is based on lists (vs tags), I had many lists set up – from customer lists to opt-in lists and more. If you joined my main list and then opted-in to my new freebie, I paid for you twice. There are people on my list that have been there since 2008, and have opted-in to many of my lists — it’s possible that I might have been paying for people 5x or more. Plus – it totally skewed my numbers. If you were on five different lists, you were counted five times. This did not give me an accurate reflection of my current subscriber numbers.
AWeber has a lot to offer, especially to companies that frequently utilize autoresponders. The autoresponder series set up was among the most intuitive and simplest I’ve ever seen…and of course, once your series is set up, you can allow it to run in the background with no further actions on your part. The WYSIWYG editor has some nice features and recent updates have improved the email design experience significantly. The analytics and reporting capabilities are a step above par, as is AWeber’s number of integrations.
I have been operating my website since 2004, I’ve seen trends come and go. One thing I refuse to do is annoy my customers with ads on my site or annoying newsletter subscriptions. Does anyone agree or is the whole world trying to push their business down our throats for the sake of making as much money as possible. Does anybody care about user experience? If you’re good at what you do then you will be found

“No, because a lot of others have told us those are the features within some of these all-in-one business solutions that make them extremely cumbersome and overwhelming. Our target customers are bloggers, podcasters and other people who are building audiences who want to be able to have an easy-to-use, but powerful email marketing system, with automation and all of the features that you want, without all of the things that you don’t need right now.”

Video has to be included in your marketing mix. So review your content and think about how you can turn it into a video. This could be animated video, something you shoot with your digital phone, or even hiring a production crew for a customized shoot. The return on investment can more than pay for itself as a well planned video can provide benefits for years.
As with most ESPs, you’ll need to certify that any list you upload is permission-based and conforms with the provider’s anti-spam policies. AWeber takes this a step farther than some. You will need to enter the source of the email list when you upload it, and AWeber requires confirmed opt-in for all addresses. This means your first email will have to be a request for your subscribers to confirm their subscriptions. Anyone who doesn’t confirm can’t be on your list. (AWeber does allow some exceptions to this rule if you have a list that has already gone through confirmed opt-in with another ESP.)